


Bloom

by Phantasmal_Salp



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 16:34:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20933318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantasmal_Salp/pseuds/Phantasmal_Salp
Summary: Devola has some thoughts when she's alone.





	Bloom

It felt cold.  
Devola knew she was dying. She was glad for it, she wanted it. She . . .  
She was alone.  
Popola, next to her, was still. Her sister, her . . . other.  
It wasn't just from her systems shutting down that made her feel cold. Or the sweat evaporating into the air. It was the feeling of solitude that she'd never known before. Something she'd always feared, so many times when the duo had been threatened, or they'd had to go so far alone in the hostile world.  
But they'd helped in the end, right? It had to be worth it for that.  
It had to be.  
Maybe . . . maybe now when their lines were retired, this little blip of data could be recorded - she didn't know by who, or why - that in the end, they were helpful. They did their duty.  
A tear came from one of her eyes; the other was glitching. Bits of data went across it, and it couldn't focus properly. It kept wanting to zoom in on a far distant point.  
A small bit of data flickered across her vision; a strange quote from a human, long ago. It was something she had read . . . when? Was this data somehow from before the memories of their units had been wiped?  
If it was, she remembered nothing else, but the words were burned into her faulty eye.  
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.  
Now she was a half soul, she figured. If she'd ever had one; probably not. She was just an android. Not worthy of even a soul.  
She felt physical pain, it had been bad, but it was nothing compared to that in her head.  
If she ignored the coldness of her sister, if she . . . if she just pretended that Popola wasn't dead, she could almost imagine that they were just going to sleep, huddled together for warmth, one of their nights out alone.  
It was nice to think of, even if just for a moment.  
But reality came back. It always did. The world carried on, without Popola, and soon to be without her.  
There were scant minutes left now. She could infer that much from the rate her processes were shutting down. Nothing to be done about it, and she wouldn't try. There was no point alone.  
Leaning her head against Popola, she was glad that A2 had also gone into the tower. She had a feeling there would be violence, but maybe . . .  
It was worth hoping someone got a happy ending, right?  
Ah, there went another chunk of memory. The words faded from her view, but she held onto them with what remained of her short term memory. Not a lot left now.  
Her head lilted to the side, and she could see out the doorway of the tower. Amidst the bodies of YoRHa and the scrap of machines, her broken eye was struggling to focus on some distant object.  
She wished it would stop. She let her other eye close, trying to get her broken eye to calm. She just wanted peace at the end. Stillness.  
Her eye managed to focus, catching something that was out of place.  
It was small, a green speck. Her eye focused on it for some reason, beyond her control.  
It was a tiny plant. There was a flower bud on it, that had yet to open. The white of the bud was slowly turning yellow. It was so small. Even when it opened it would be just a tiny little thing, alone.  
Next to it, was the body of a YoRHa soldier. Her blood was drenched the ground around it, and on a leaf of the plant she saw that a drop of blood had lingered and dried.  
Another section of her brain shut down, but oddly the section on horticulture had not. Unbidden, it brought up information.  
Plants were nourished by the remains of bodies. Even the liquid that sufficed as the blood of androids could provide that sustenance.  
The cognitive part of her brain was shutting down now; her vision would go with it, being among the last systems to go offline. How odd.  
Everything in her sight dimmed, and her mind struggled to put together a final thought, as everything turned black except that little, lone plant.  
In death, there could still be life.  
Oh.  
She hoped for life, then.

*******

FINIS


End file.
